Education has the power to enlighten, encourage, motivate and inspire. However, when education is denied, powerlessness, low self-esteem and despair take over.
Education is one of the clearest examples of discrimination against women. There are twice as many girls as boys currently out of school worldwide, and among illiterate adults there are twice as many women as men.
A lack of education results in a lack of choice, a lack of power and a lack of opportunity. Taking this away from girls reduces them to slaves, dependent on the men in their lives for everything. It is only education that offers girls genuine freedom, and it is a right, not a privilege, as established by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
However, discrimination, prejudice, culture and misogyny all keep girls out of school, instead forcing them into early marriage and childbirth with grown men much older than themselves. The very fact that education offers girls and women the chance for healthier and happier lives should be reason enough to make it important, but educating girls also benefits society as a whole.
When a girl is educated, she is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children, making these children, and the mother, more likely to survive. An educated woman will be better paid, enabling her to invest more in her family and contribute more to her community.
However, even in cases when girls do have the chance to experience some education, this is often of a low standard. The expectation that girls will marry and not work means that teachers often give them less attention and girls have poorer access to learning materials than boys.
The education of girls needs to be taken seriously in order for it to have the necessary impact. Female teachers offer girls new role models and inspiration, and support from home helps girls feel as encouraged and motivated as their brothers. The learning materials provided for girls should be relevant and in the local language, and most importantly, they should not reproduce damaging gender stereotypes that lead girls to believe they have few options in comparison to their brothers.
Charities such as Plan UK support girls living in poverty around the world by helping them to claim their rights andgiving them access life-changing education. It is only with education that girls can learn about their rights and the opportunities they could have access to if they were treated fairly. Such campaigns help to raise awareness, teaching families the importance of their daughters and the negative consequences of practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM).
To learn more about the importance of girls’ education and what is being done to help, visit Plan UK Girls Fund page by clicking here.
